Wednesday, 29 January 2014

The ring of change

By
Giles Emerson

“Time for a change” rings out the
constant cry. Change fashions, change jobs, change phones, change cars, change
media, change suppliers, buyers, wallpaper, in-laws, habits, jobs, governments,
nappies, cars, buses, one’s tune, one’s money…ways of doing things. Such a
lovely word, with so many gradations of meaning for so many people in very
different circumstances: the threat of climate change, the hope of regime
change; for some a truly desperate prayer, for others a trip to the
hairdresser.

Are we not all bewildered by the
brutal battery of both global and domestic events interpreted by a
hyper-ventilated media demanding everything, all answers to all questions now,
and now, and now? We helplessly follow the camera lens and editors pens inertly
condemning or marvelling at the daily foibles of the poor sods who put
themselves up as leaders. Each effort and well intended breath is amplified and
ridiculed on a global stage. With every new day history is in the basket
waiting to be recycled. Throw out the old, bring in the rehashed.

Is it just me feeling overwhelmed
by the idea of change – perhaps because of the halo that this particular word
still forms around President-Elect Obama’s oratory – or could it be that the
very notion of change is both changing, changeable and possibly diminished by
repetition?

Why diminished? Well that depends
on the context in which it is used. If we take two large sorting bags both
labelled ‘change’, we could place government aspirations and business practice
in one bag and everything else in the other. We can ignore or sift ‘everything
else’ as we see fit. The horrors and joys and interim ploys lie in the first
bag, muddled and struggling.

So starting with government
aspirations, edited to policy, change tends to be something promised but
infrequently delivered. In the UK, the lack of a fixed term parliament, coupled
with the political machinations required to please the electorate as new
circumstances arise, mostly put pay to changes that may well be geared toward,
say, improving education and health services. Short-termism and expedience
seldom allow fundamental change. Besides which an increasingly wary and
informed electorate readily spot old policies with a new name; change starts to
mean less and less. Of course, governments do achieve incremental changes of
one kind or another, some good, some bad and many unintended. Politicians
measure and count and spin and shout about these things. But, in general, the
more the bell of change is rung, the less it is heeded.

While the global leaders are up to
their necks in spate water, attempting to direct the flow, the rest of us do
our best to tip our daily buckets into the maelstrom and make ends meet. It is not change or reform that the lucky,
mostly pampered people who live in developed countries require, but a sense of
purpose and a little more efficiency.

And so, very briefly, to business
practice, also lumped into bag one. The leaders of major businesses show signs
of believing that they must make strident changes in order to gear themselves
for a lower carbon future. Given the volatility of global markets and the
financial crisis, it is extremely difficult to find a way forward in this
respect. Any surpluses or profits these businesses have are hard to reinvest
when former, tried and tested economic models and assumptions about future
growth are changing, almost by the hour. For more than twenty years, big
businesses have relied to some extent on their ability to ‘manage change’ – a
constant, iterative process in response to mostly predictable stimuli. But with
so much at stake and so little sense of where we will all wash up, the change
manager is becoming obsolete. Slightly in the dark, he can no longer hang his
hat where the money is.

Yet in the face of climate change
and with the desire to perpetrate the goods and services that people need or
want, businesses really do have to look at the bigger picture, one which
embraces competitors, suppliers and customers - all of us. A species survives
by adapting and often by working together and not generally by fighting at the
waterhole – unless they’re desperate, by which time it’s too late. With hope
our business leaders will explore the symbiotic equivalent of profit and learn
to share, collaborate, make the waste of one industry the input of another.
Perhaps our political leaders will do this too, using a softer pedal and some
courtesy to other drivers. It just takes more time and a longer view.

About Me

Welcome to Words Professional Writing Services. On this site we describe how copywriting in the right hands can be powerful, effective and valuable. Our work is not about shop-dressing and prettifying, but about conveying strengths, activities and aims – and compelling information. It's about demonstrating the value of goods, services and strategies. It's about making a direct appeal to people and other businesses. Often it's about setting the direction of travel and spelling out the vision.